spiritual food for thought

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resist

Being rebellious usually gets the thumbs down reaction from the Christian crowd. We tend to find those verses that talk about being respectful, obedient & compliant & there are heaps of Bible verses to support this mindset.

However, being a person who finds herself sometimes at odds with many societal norms, let me highlight some ways that Jesus went the opposite of the culture & society of His day.

Unexpected: Jesus didn’t cater to what people expected from Him. Consider in His first miracle that He told His mom to “chill out” (my slang for “Woman, My time is not yet come”)

Forgiveness: when all the religious leaders of His day wanted Jesus to condemn the woman caught in adultery, Jesus forgave her & the intolerance / judgment evaporated

Genuine Love: one of my favorite quotes from Jesus: “He who has been forgiven much, loves much; but he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

If we are followers of Jesus, then we must go the opposite of our flesh, religious intolerance, demonic influences & cultural trends. Most of all, let’s personify genuine love because of the Holy Spirit working in our mindsets, conversations & actions!

“Bow down to me & I’ll give you all that you see.” This was the final temptation the devil tried against Jesus at the beginning of His ministry. I’ve been thinking about the 3 ways the devil tried to tempt Jesus – against His flesh, worship & power / authority.
It seems to me that the devil uses the same schemes on us. He tries to tempt us with flesh stuff. He tries to sabotage our worship of God using alluring idols (money, image, pride, intellect, etc). And the devil endeavors to undermine the authority God has given us, telling us that we are frail, powerless, disabled & incapacitated. I think the devil’s number one tool is deception. This is reason alone to snuggle into the Holy Spirit, our Spirit of Truth, so we don’t fall prey to the devils’ efforts & schemes.

Be sure to read my book, Heavenly Help, so you can stay in synch with the Holy Spirit & out of synch with the devil, the enemy of your soul!

Mice look for some place warm in the Fall & they sometimes find their way into our house, like this year. So my husband sent me off to Walmart to get the normal mouse removal accessories & they’ve been strategically placed around our kitchen for maximum impact 🙂
In this adventure, I’ve learned that one of my offspring, who will again remain nameless, has a mouse phobia . Imagine our fun to learn about this new opportunity to be playful or mischievous depending on how your frame it.

This child is quite jumpy with the whole mouse thing, even though there’s a clear size & intelligence advantage. In some respects, the devil is kind of like a mouse, looking to sneak his way into our thoughts & scare us at unexpected moments. Just because the devil can roar doesn’t mean he’s a lion – 1 Pet 5:8. Let’s be careful that we don’t let ourselves be intimated by the enemy of our soul. Reject the mice spice ,)

I was being a little cheeky with the last part of the Lord’s Prayer – deliver us from the evil one. At the end of everything Jesus teaches us to pray, in the Lord’s Prayer, He says that we should ask our Father to deliver us from the evil one. This petition comes after we establish God’s position in our life as our Father, Hallowed One, King, Master, Provider, Forgiver & Leader. God is also our deliverer & He does and will deliver us from the evil one – the Devil. I think the Devil’s fundamental job description is found in John 10:10 – the theif comes to steal, kill & destroy. Thankfully, Jesus tells us that not only is our Father able to deliver us from the Devil’s efforts, but that we should actively make this request to our heavenly Father.

Bottom line – evil exists in the world & its origin is with the Devil. Our job is to resist him, run to our heavenly Father & ask Him to deliver us from the Devil’s efforts in our life. Pretty straight forward.

I pray that God would help you to recognize the Devil & his efforts in your life so that whatever he may try with you, would be thoroughly disabled & confused by your heavenly Father, as you pray for His deliverence.